Ambrose Akinmusire: Emerging Heart

The feeling you get from gospel music, and the feeling the old jazz musicians that originated the music got from playing their instruments, is something that I didn't separate. It was always gospel music to me--just them playing it on an instrument.

"My favorite instrument is the cello," said the easygoing young musician in early February, from his apartment in Manhattan, where he referred to himself jokingly as "a hibernating jazzman." His West-Coast roots weren't taking a firm grip in the frigid temperatures of the Northeast. "Me and strings just don't get along. I can play piano; I can play a lot of different things, drums. But strings, I just don't get."

Those words came from Ambrose Akinmusire, a trumpet player of considerable merit and one of the fresh voices on today's jazz scene. That might seem a bit off-kilter for a guy who, at age 28, is rightly considered one of the rising stars on his instrument. But some things about Akinmusire are just different like that. Coming out of California's Berkley High School as an acclaimed trumpeter, he had scholarship offers from the Manhattan School of Music, Berklee College of Music and the New School. "But I wanted to be a mathematician. I wanted to go to Stanford and study math and do something along those lines," he says matter-of-factly.

He chose Manhattan School of Music, but unlike the preponderance of students there, Akinmusire considered himself a rebel of sorts. His methods of getting in touch with the jazz tradition and relating it to his own creativity were often at odds with his teachers. In 2007, he won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Trumpet Competition, but, says Akinmusire, "I chose trumpet just because it had three buttons [valves]. There's no special story behind it. I just coincidentally play trumpet. I see myself more as a musician or an artist. I just so happen to play trumpet. I do love it. It's not my favorite instrument."

These things may suggest Akinmusire is one of those artists, as in: "Oh,those eccentric artists." Not so. He's a very serious musician who admits one of his missions is to change jazz by helping bring about a freedom of expression he feels may be getting lost. He's honest, a deep thinker and a highly evolved soul. He's also extremely affable, laughs easily, and is as down-to-earth as one would want. He doesn't take himself too seriously, in spite of the seriousness of his art and his ability to throw himself fully into the weightiness of his pursuits. It's just that Akinmusire thinks outside the boxto the point where he probably dislikes that now-trite expression "outside the box."

And he has succinct, even if not standard, ideas on things like his approach to music and his trumpet style. Talk to Akinmusire for a length of time, and one can't help but assess that he trusts what he knows and feels, and is comfortably aware that there's always much more to learnmore ways to grow. About his playing, he says, "Sometimes I want to sound ignorant. Sometimes I want to sound really articulate. There's nothing wrong with that. Each one makes the other stand out more." He quips at one point, "I practice a lot just to eliminate the feeling of metal in my handsso I can at least pretend I'm playing the cello."

Akinmusire has made a name for himself in a short period of time. His new recording, When the Heart Emerges Glistening (Blue Note, 2011), released in April, is sure to do nothing but boost his standing. It is one of the best records of 2011 thus far, and one that will last. Accomplished with guys he's played with for a while, and produced by pianist Jason Moran, the recording is an inspired musical statement. Almost like a suite, it covers different moods. There are different kinds of conversations. The playing is killin.'

"I want to change jazz," says the trumpeter, directly and without arrogance or pretense. He knows what he means and knows what he wants. "If I can't do that, I want to at least inspire somebody to change it or to move it forward. I feel like it's been in the same position for years now, whereas in the beginning [of jazz], every 10 years there would be a new movement. I think in classical music it's still happening. In hip-hop it's happening. In every other genre it's happening; for some reason in jazz, it's not. There are reasons for that. I think that's related to the musical institutions.